Capt. Mohamed Hussein said the bomb was detonated Sunday by remote control as women tried to remove bags of rubbish from a street corner.

Seven women were also wounded in the attack, Hussein said. It appeared to be a rare attack targeting sanitation workers tasked with cleaning a city known for dangerous ordnance from the more than two decades of conflict.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which bore the hallmarks of previous explosion that killed 21 street cleaners in Mogadishu in 2007 and which was claimed by Islamist extremist insurgents.